Why I absolutely agree with boycotting the Oscars this year

Disclaimer: This article is in response to a strongly opinionated and well written article published on The Tab Temple yesterday. I present to you the “Clap back.”

As you may or may not know, last month the nominees for the 88th annual Academy Awards were released, and for the second year in a row all of the acting nominees are white. A boycott is currently taking place and hopefully it will continue until the awards are over and forgotten about.

On Dr. Martin Luther King’s Birthday, world renown actress and activist, Jada Pinkett Smith, released a video in which she introduced the idea of a boycott. She argued that “begging for acknowledgment or even asking, diminishes dignity, and diminishes power and we [the black race] are a dignified people and we are powerful, let us not forget it.” The emotion conveyed by Mrs. Smith is intrinsic to the black experience, and it is the black experience that is always either misunderstood or intentionally ignored by other racial groups.

When the boycott went viral, mostly white people along with a small number of confused people of color, had something negative to say about it. Like clockwork, they came forward with their ignorance and their microaggressions. Clearly, the audacity of privilege has no bounds. Most of them argued that a boycott “is not the way to change things.” Those “things” being, the lack of diversity, not only among the Academy officials, but also the film and art industry overall. There is of course the issue of actors’ pay wage and the imbalance along gender and racial lines. The problem with under-representation within the film industry goes deeper, and quite frankly white people do not know “what it’s really like to work in Hollywood” if you’re not a straight white man.

Now I have been nice so far, and I am willing to give the benefit of the doubt, understanding that most white people don’t, or sometimes won’t, comprehend the overall phenomena that is their privilege. But I will not tolerate microaggressive speech and opinion, and by any means necessary, I and others as #woke as myself, will certainly be present to clap back at even the mildness of hateful speech.

To suggest that Jada Pinkett Smith’s “argument has no depth” is to disregard the overall intention of the boycott. From the comfort of her California mansion, she notes that “people of color, have amassed so much power and influence” and that we must “recognize” that “we no longer need to ask to be invited anywhere.” So,“if we love, respect, and acknowledge ourselves in the way that we are asking others to do” then a boycott of this magnitude can make great change and cripple the legitimacy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

And yeah, back to the the thing called “the black experience” I mentioned before, such a boycott of this magnitude was seen before, there’s a thing called the Montgomery Bus Boycott. And if you don’t know who Ms. Rosa Parks is then that’s just sad.

Lastly, no one said anything about whether those white dudes didn’t deserve those nominations. I for one am praying for Leonardo DiCaprio. Don’t say we’re obsessed with awards, because it’s condescending and forgetting the fact the Academy Awards were originally a white institution. David Oyelowo (Selma) and Idris Elba (Beast of No Nation) aren’t African American. Some people are in the need of a political correctness dictionary. I could explain the many foundations of racism and sexism within professional sports organizations and media, but that’s for another article.

If you’re #woke, don’t watch the Oscars, but if you think you are #woke and will be watching the Oscars, you better have a damn good reason why.